A Sunlit Walk in The Underground Forest - March 2026
Welcome to this month’s edition of A Sunlit Walk in the Underground Forest. This is a curated selection of new music I love, hand-selected by me!
Featuring Gina Zo, Kyle Gordon, Strange Plants, Jaime French, Mora Michelle, Moby, Jesus Christ Taxi Driver, Trousdale, and RIO KOSTA.
This weeks edition features; a song that sounds like a computer having a synthesized dream; a song that will remind you of the blissful balmy calm of Here, There and Everywhere; a song that sounds like an ethereal Irish pop ballad; a shimmering cover of Neil Young’s Old Man; an analog pop song that made me think of the 2014 movie ‘Frank’ for some reason; a song parodying the rich with lyrics such as “I said what’s that strange sensation/Rachel says that’s precipitation” and more!
If you have a new song coming out, email me - I would love to listen!
A Sunlit Walk In The Underground Forest ☀️ Light Pop • Folk • Electronica • RnB
Jaime French - The Hunter
I remember being ill one day a few years ago and binging every single video Jaime French has ever made (one of my personal favourites being Purple Hearts Caused me Physical Discomfort, which literally almost killed me).
‘The Hunter’ is the first single from the artist's upcoming EP ‘The Ripple Effect’ out March 2026, which has a ‘dreamy Irish ballad from the 1990s’ vibe to it - lending it a mystical, ethereal quality as it discusses the elusive figure of insomnia: “Some call me insomnia/I call myself ‘The Hunter!’ The soundscape is rich and alive with something that never fully reveals itself, cloaking itself in mystery, almost like the backdrop of a folk tale where you never fully know what is going on, leaving you wanting more. The vocals at 1:06 are possibly the most heavenly vocals I have ever heard.
Connect with Jaime French
Instagram / X / Facebook
Lay Your Mind - Strange Plants
For some reason, this song made me think of the 2014 movie ‘Frank’ (based on the Jon Ronson book of the same name), not in sound per se, but in the quality of the creative spark shimmering throughout, which makes the song feel like it exists in its own artistic galaxy. I listen to a lot of music daily, but ‘Lay Your Mind’ is unusual in a way that I can’t fully put my finger on. I love the vocals, the analog pop feel to it all, and how it doesn’t sound like anything else.
On the song, songwriter Matt Brannon says, "Travis (Flint) sent me a voice note of him playing guitar while bathing his infant son. It was a really cool musical motif that became the basis for the verses."
Connect with Strange Plants
Instagram / Facebook
The Opposite of Fear - Moby
Photo credit: Lindsay Hicks
Last year, I purchased Moby’s autobiography ‘Porcelain’ after being entranced by the opening pages, which detailed the artist living in an abandoned factory in Stamford in 1989, accompanied by a drum machine, a TASCAM four-track mixer, and sequencers. I am currently re-reading it, as it details the dance and club music scene of New York City in the 1990s, where the vast majority of the music I love today would have came from, or have at least been influenced by it in some way; and it has a lot of artists and songs that I would otherwise never have heard of (for example Doug Lazy’s ‘Let It Roll’).
‘Future Quiet’ is a different, quieter album - on this Moby says, “‘Future Quiet’ is, not surprisingly, quiet. To be clear; I love bombast. I love excess and volume. But as the world gets louder and crazier I find myself needing the refuge of quiet. Writing and recording it was a refuge for me, and I hope that listening to it is a refuge for you.”
‘The Opposite of Fear’ is taken from the aforementioned album; it is a gentle, cloud-like, shimmering soundscape that cocoons and soothes; it kind of sounds like a dream coming from the computer, gliding through the night air with its synthetic murmurs, lulling you into a state of pure calm.
Connect with Moby
Website / Instagram / X
Jesus Christ Taxi Driver - Too Cold To Golf
This is everything I love in a parody music video: a green-screen background, on-screen lyrics done in karaoke style, the generally bizarre Adult Swim/VHS found-footage quality to it all. The acting in the music video gets across the pure contempt the 1% have for the rest of us; the song itself is smooth, with lyrics such as “I said what’s that strange sensation?/Rachel says“that’s precipitation.”, being amongst my favourite lines. This is taken from the band’s upcoming album ‘Taxi The Rich’, out April 24th.
Connect with Jesus Christ Taxi Driver
Website / Instagram / Facebook
Dead Oceans - Kyle Gordon
Much like ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ before it, this floats to your ears through an open window on a balmy summer day. The guitars fuse with the ambient sounds of the ocean, the vocals kind of feeling like they are from the summer of 1979 (they also have a small bit of a Tame Impala vibe to them). This will make you feel like you are on a secluded beach cove, relishing every second of being alive. There is one word for this song, and it is pure and utter bliss.
The song is “about deep gratitude for a profound love—one that only makes sense after surviving the ones that didn't. It acknowledges past relationships not with bitterness, but with clarity, recognizing them as necessary steps toward something fuller and more enduring”.
Connect with Kyle Gordon
Instagram / X
Trousdale - Old Man
The LA-based trio released a cover of Neil Young’s ‘Old Man’ to accompany the announcement of ‘Growing Pains Deluxe’ - an expanded version of their album from last year, which is set to be released May 15th (which you can pre-save here).
The piano chords in the opening of this tinkle and shimmer from a pink sky down to your ears, accompanied by buttery, divine harmonies. The trio brings their signature magical quality to this classic; I like how it isn’t overproduced, as it allows the song to breathe and retain its human quality. Wonderful.
“We’ve always been huge fans of Neil Young,” shared Trousdale. “His music and activism have both served as massive inspirations for us as a band. We covered ‘Old Man’ years ago for fun, and filmed a live version as just a trio. But as we began touring with a full band, it became a constant cover in our live set. It’s by far the hardest vocal arrangement we’ve ever performed. Although this song has been in our live repertoire for years, we felt like ‘Old Man’ was the perfect cover for us to begin with, after releasing ‘Growing Pains.’ For the song itself and our own journey with it, we loved the idea of following our album up with a song about growing up — and how we all want and need so many of the same things in life no matter our age.”
Connect with Trousdale
Website / Instagram / X / Facebook
Mora Michelle - Obsessed
This was a gift bestowed upon me by the YouTube algorithm (aside from Bandcamp, YouTube is, in my opinion, a much more fun way to discover new music than Spotify).
The music video for ‘Obsessed’ opens on dreamy blue skies, with glittery reverb-drenched electric piano chords and some hyperpop adjacent dreamy vocals - the main vocal melody in this is deliciously haunting and addictive, kind of reminding me of those in Kim Petras’s ‘Popsound’(one of my favourite releases of this year so far, maybe even of the decade). This song itself has a cool bedroom pop quality to it, with a surreal, glittering fog swirling around the soundscape and the vocals.
Connect with Mora Michelle
Instagram / X / Spotify
RIO KOSTA - Unicorn
This comes to your ears on the wind of the Nevada desert plains in the 1970s. This honestly does not sound like a modern song; it truly sounds like it is from another time. ‘Unicorn’ is psychedelic, easy-going, with some sublime vocal performances and some seriously good engineering. The music video reflects all of these qualities, submerging you into its deliciously smooth sonic world even further.
On the song, the band says, "'Unicorn' has been taking on a life of its own and we wanted to give a window to the world from which it was made. Zack Mizurik, who has been our longtime collaborator and director, had hours of footage at our HQ in LA just naturally doing our thing and thought it was a warm juxtaposition to the more produced and designed aesthetics of some of the other videos. The song just always felt homemade and piecemeal'd together so it felt appropriate to have the video reflect that same nature. RIO KOSTA is a family and a small village besides the two of us and hope that collective joy comes across."
Connect with RIO KOSTA
Website / Instagram
Bad Men - Gina Zo (Miner Street Sessions)
This is taken from the artist’s new Deluxe edition of her September 2025 album ‘Burn Me Into Something Better’, which features Miner Street Session versions of her songs.
These stripped-back acoustic settings showcase how truly powerful and exceptional the artist is as a vocalist (as well as a songwriter). This version of ‘Bad Men’ opens with optimistic, sunshine-dappled pop guitar chords, the opening lyrics “blue skies since you been gone” making you feel like a weight and dark presence has been lifted from your shoulders, with only better times ahead. This could help you get through some very dark times, knowing that light, blooming, and joy await you after it all.
Connect with Gina Zo
Website / Instagram / X
Spotify Playlist
About Eimear O Sullivan
Eimear Ann O Sullivan is a multi-genre music producer, audio engineer and vocalist. After receiving a Masters in Music Technology from the CIT Cork School of Music, she went on to operate as a producer under the name Blakkheart. Her releases have received critical acclaim from Ireland's biggest music publications, such as District Magazine and Nialler9, alongside receiving heavy commercial radio airplay. She currently works in Cork recording studio Flashpoint CC. Previous clients of hers include the likes of Comedy Central’s Dragony Aunt star Candy Warhol, rapper Darce and Outsider YP. (Photo credit @Fabian Boros)
Contact Eimear O Sullivan at eimear.o.sullivan@musicngear.com
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